Google Reader Rolls Out A New Google Plus-Integrated Interface

Google Reader is following in the footsteps of Gmail, Docs, and Voice with a clean new interface, that’s easier to use and contains integration with the Google+ social network.

If you use Google Docs or the new Gmail preview, you’ll be very familiar with Reader’s new interface. Everything is very white and clean, with a single search bar across the top and red buttons to denote the service’s main features. Reader has also replaced “Liking” a story with “+1″, and when you +1 a story, you have the option to share it with any of your circles on Google+. This replaces the old “following”, “friending”, and “sharing” features of Reader and rolls them into the new social network instead. Head on over to Google Reader to check out the new changes, or hit the link below to read more on Google’s blog.

Note that the new interface is still rolling out, so if you don’t see it, check back periodically throughout the day. Google says everyone should have it by this evening.

They really need to add an option to modify the display density, like they did in Google Docs.

I'm also a little disappointed in the half-assed Google+ integration. When they said they were ditching the existing social features in favour of G+ integration, I was expecting something a little more elaborate than a mere +1 button.

As it stands now, there's no way to share an article with just a few people, since +1's are all public.

I agree about the whitespace in that huge bar at the top; you should be able to fit more than a couple of one-paragraph posts on a 24" monitor. I like my feed list so toggling fullscreen with 'f' isn't perfect.

That said, I do like the new look in general and I'm cautiously optimistic about replacing the social side of things with google+.

The pop-up said it was designed for "less clutter" - but there is more white space 'clutter'! The fonts are bigger, the white space more, the header takes far too much space with button margins far too big. The result is opposite to what they state to be aiming for - less screen real estate.

Integration with G+ - couldn't they have just changed the 'share' button to a G+ button? I would have thought it would have been reasonably easy to allow to migrate existing shared options to G+ shared? Surely it's just a single database query. I've been using the Google Reader since the first week it came out and loved it, and started sharing early. It's a pity not to be able to migrate that history to the new platform.
I'm disappointed.

I was wondering why I'm not getting any recommendations, but obviously it's because I'm not liking anything. I'm not a sharer though, and I don't do Google Plus, so I guess I'll just have to find things on my own.

Ignoring the incredible amount of whitespace at the top, I like the new interface of reader and gmail. However, the whitespace at the top completely destroys the user experience.

The problem is that there are two bars (3 including the site bar at the top) that are extremely padded. I don't mind the padding, the problem is that the two bars take up a huge amount of space.

For gmail, the Mail dropdown could be merged with the gmail logo. Likewise, the search field could be moved into the blank space on the action bar below. This would improve the space issue for gmail.

For greader, you could move the controls to the right of Subscribe to the section title bar (the one that says "All items") and have them aligned on the right (the buttons are roughly the same height as the title bar). The subscribe button could be moved to the far right of the search/logo bar. This would improve the space issue with greader.